essays of idleness summary

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Essays in idleness.

The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō, With a New Preface

Translated by Donald Keene

Columbia University Press

Pub Date: May 1998

ISBN: 9780231112550

Format: Paperback

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A most delightful book, and one that has served as a model of Japanese style and taste since the seventeenth century. These cameo-like vignettes reflect the importance of the little, fleeting futile things, and each essay is Kenkō himself. Asian Student

If you enjoy things briefly told, if you want to try the prose equivalent of waka and haiku , if you already know Montaigne and would like to meet a spiritual kinsman, then you might want to take an evening and read Essays in Idleness .... [A] superb translation. Washington Post

A sensitive, personal reading. Journal of Asian Studies

The Tsurezuregusa is a key instrument in attempting to teach the classical Japanese tradition to the modern Western student.... This is indeed a welcome volume. Monumenta Nipponica

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The meaning of death in Kenkō Yoshida's Tsurezuregusa [Essays in idleness]

This article discusses the meaning of death in Kenkō Yoshida's Tsurezuregusa [Essays in idleness], completed around 1330 at the end of the Kamakura Period (1185–1333). Kenkō, who was a Buddhist monk and hermit, naturally construed the concept of death in terms of the impermanence of the world. Taking Lakoffian conceptual metaphor theory, in which death is understood as an abstract category, as a jumping-off point, I contrast the Buddhist conception of death with different conceptualizations of metaphor and metonymy by contemporary scholars to locate the notion of “death” in the medieval linguistic context. I claim that while death in Essays in idleness is more frequently considered non-literal, it is not interpretable metaphorically. This hints at an alternative, namely, that Kenkō's concept of death is created metonymically. Impermanence as a literary aesthetic thus crystallizes in the form of death as a syntagmatic metonym.

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| The Art of Aliveness for All

5 Themes from “In Praise of Idleness” by Bertrand Russell (Essay Summary)

By Kyle Kowalski · Leave a Comment

“The first principle of all action is leisure.” — Aristotle

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate.¹

In 1932, at 60 years old, he wrote  In Praise of Idleness —  you can view the full essay for free on Harper’s Magazine or download a PDF here .

After reading the essay, I feel like a more appropriate title would have been In Praise of Wise Leisure . And, now 86 years later, I can’t help but wonder…is today’s knowledge work the equivalent of his era’s manual labor?

5 Themes from “In Praise of Idleness” by Bertrand Russell

Before we jump in, let’s cover how Bertrand Russell defines work:

• “First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.”

Throughout the essay, he generally discusses the evolution of work as he sees it:

• “From the beginning of civilization until the industrial revolution a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard and his children added their labor as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by priests and warriors.”
• “In the West we have various ways of dealing with this problem. We have no attempt at economic justice, so that a large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no work at all. Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle because we can dispense with their labor by making others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of manual work must be the lot of the average man.”
• “Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world. Modern technic has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.”

Here’s his take on the current perception of work during his time:

• “Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my  actions,  my  opinions  have undergone a revolution.”
• “If you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say, ‘I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man’s noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet. It is true that my body demands periods of rest, which I have to fill in as best I may, but I am never so happy as when the morning comes and I can return to the toil from which my contentment springs.’”
• “They consider work, as it should be considered, as a necessary means to a livelihood, and it is from their leisure hours that they derive whatever happiness they may enjoy.”

Now, let’s get into the 5 themes…

• “The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life.”
• “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”
• “I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by the belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.”
• “What will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?”
• “Modern technic has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor necessary to produce the necessaries of life for every one.”
• “Let us take an illustration. Suppose that at a given moment a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins as before. But the world does not need twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?”
• “If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization.”
• “When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours’ work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried farther than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently.”
• “It will be said that while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours’ work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.”
• “A man who has worked long hours all his life will be bored if he becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things.”
• “The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education.”
• “In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and the capacity.”
• “Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen instead to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines. In this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.”

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell
• https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

About Kyle Kowalski

👋 Hi, I'm Kyle―the human behind Sloww . I'm an ex-marketing executive turned self-education entrepreneur after an existential crisis in 2015. In one sentence: my purpose is synthesizing lifelong learning that catalyzes deeper development . But, I’m not a professor, philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, scientist, mystic, or guru. I’m an interconnector across all those humans and many more—an "independent, inquiring, interdisciplinary integrator" (in other words, it's just me over here, asking questions, crossing disciplines, and making connections). To keep it simple, you can just call me a "synthesizer." Sloww shares the art of living with students of life . Read my story.

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Reason and Meaning

Philosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life, summary of bertrand russell’s “in praise of idleness”.

In 1932, at age 60, my exact age as I write this post, Bertrand Russell penned a provocative essay, “ In Praise of Idleness .” Russell begins,

… I was brought up on the saying: ‘Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.’ Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, [and] that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous …

Russell divides work into: 1) physical labor; and 2) the work of those who manage laborers (those whose work allows them to buy what the laborer’s produce, essentially almost everyone else.) In addition, there are the idle rich, who “are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work.” Russell despises this type of idleness, dependent as it is on the labor of others. But how did this all come to be?

For all of human history until the Industrial Revolution, an individual could produce little more than was necessary for subsistence. Originally any surplus was taken forcefully from the peasants by warriors and priests, but gradually laborers were induced to believe that hard work was their duty, even though it supported the idleness of others. As a result, laborers worked for their masters, and the masters, in turn, convinced themselves that what was good for them was good for everyone. But is this true?

Sometimes this is true; Athenian slave-owners, for instance, employed part of their leisure in making a permanent contribution to civilization which would have been impossible under a just economic system. Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few was only rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization.

Russell saw that 1930s technology was already making more leisure time possible. (This is even more true with 21st-century technology .) Yet society had not changed in the sense that it was still a place where some work long hours, while others are unemployed. This is what he called “the morality of the Slave State …” He illustrates with a thought experiment. Suppose that a plant manufactures employs a certain number of people who work 8 hours a day and produce all the pins the world needs. Now suppose that an invention allows the same number of people to make twice as many pins.

In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

Russell notes that the rich have always despised the idea of the poor having leisure time.

In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day’s work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child … certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: ‘What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.’

Russell acknowledges that there is a duty to work in the sense that all human beings depend on labor for their existence. What follows from this is that we shouldn’t consume more than we produce, and we should give back to the world in labor or services for the sustenance we receive. But this is the only sense in which there is a duty to work. And while the idle rich are not virtuous, that is not “nearly so harmful as the fact that wage-earners are expected to overwork or starve.” Russell admits that some persons don’t use their leisure time wisely, but leisure time is essential for a good life. There is thus no good reason why most people should be deprived of it, and “only a foolish asceticism … makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.”

In the next few paragraphs Russell argues that in most societies the governing classes have always preached about the virtues of hard work. Working men are told they engage in honest labor, and unpaid women told to do their saintly duty. The rich praise honest toil, the simple life, motherhood, and domesticity because the ruling class wants to hoard their political power and leisure time. But “what will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?”

Russell argues that what has happened in the West is that the rich simply grab more of what is produced and amass more leisure time—many don’t even work at all. Despite the effort of the rich to consume more—their yachts sit mostly unused—many things are produced that are not needed, and many people are unemployed. When all this fails to keep enough people working

we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them … By a combination of all these devices we manage … to keep alive the notion that a great deal of severe manual work must be the lot of the average man.”

It seems we are determined to be busy no matter what the cost.

The key philosophical idea for Russell is that physical labor, while sometimes necessary, is not the purpose of life. Why then do we so value work? First, because the rich preach that work is dignified in order to keep the workers content. Second, because we take a certain delight in how technology transforms the world. But the typical worker doesn’t think that physical or monotonous labor is meaningful. Rather “they consider work, as it should be considered, a necessary means to a livelihood, and it is from their leisure that they derive whatever happiness they may enjoy.”

Some object that people wouldn’t know what to do with more leisure time, but if this is true Russell thinks it “a condemnation of our civilization.” For why must everything be done for the sake of something else? What is wrong with deriving intrinsic pleasure from simply playing? It is tragic that we don’t value enjoyment, happiness, and pleasure as we should. Still, Russell argues that leisure time isn’t best spent on frivolity; leisure time should be used intelligently. By this, he doesn’t just mean highbrow intellectual activities, although he does favor active over passive activities as good uses of leisure time. He also believes that the preference of many people for passive rather than active pursuits reflects the fact that they are exhausted from too much work. Provide more time to enjoy life, and people will learn to enjoy it.

Consider how some of the idle rich has spent their time. Historically, Russell says, the small leisure class has enjoyed unjust advantages, and they have oppressed others. Yet that leisure class

… contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism. The method of a leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful … and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. The class might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers.

Today “the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a by-product.” This is better, but the university has drawbacks. For one thing, those in the ivory tower are often “unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women.” For another thing, scholars tend to write on esoteric topics in academic jargon. So academic institutions, while useful, “are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where everyone outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits.”

Instead Russell advocates for a world where no one is compelled to work more, but allowed to indulge their scientific, aesthetic, or literary tastes, or their interest in law, medicine, government, or any other interest. What will be the result of all this? Russell answers this question with his quintessentially beautiful prose:

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one percent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits.

But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

Reflections – The hopeful nature of this last paragraph nearly move me to tears. And these are not mere quixotic ideas. Open source code, Wikipedia, my own little blog and millions like them all attest to the desire of people to express themselves through their labor.

Moreover, recent research shows that more money is not what people want from work—people want autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their pursuits. This is consistent with what Russell is saying. Give people time, and many will produce good things. So much creativity is wasted in our current social and economic system, where people are forced to do what they don’t want to do, or when they are denied the minimal amount it takes to live a decent life. In my next post , I will look at the surprising scientific evidence about what motivates people to work. Spoiler alert. It is not what you think.

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6 thoughts on “ summary of bertrand russell’s “in praise of idleness” ”.

BR’s leisure includes work. Work that may not be paid but work that gives us joy. And, as in this blog, work that serves others.

Better to rethink our work, to know our gifts or strengths so we work to serve others while giving ourselves joy.

And, considering how much we hate capitalists, many of us still choose to work for one instead of finding and working for our own customers.

How radical and revolutionary these ideas are, not for the thinking person, but for the average Joe and Josephine who are locked into a worldview dictated to them by forces all around them in society. Culprits: government, political parties, schools, churches, the media. You never hear ideas such as the ones expressed in Russell’s essay expressed in wider society. Yet, I believe that a lot of us have had these ideas, those of us who’ve transcended to idiocy that has been inculcated in us throughout our developing years.

Thanks for the great comments. You might also look at my recent review of Aaron James’ book, “Surfing With Sartre.”

What Russell said in In Praise of Idleness sounds ideal but cannot be actualized if the present social system is not changed. Even an overworked worker cannot dream of such a situation. In fact he has been taught to think that hard toil is what God likes.

I read “In Praise of Idleness” while I was in high school at my father’s insistence who made me read classic essays and write their summaries. This work by Bertrand Russel created a great impact on my mind.

I never liked sitting in my cubicle for one-third of my adult life. I am 75 now and am enjoying my retired life to the fullest doing things that only leisure could provide. The post-Covid work culture that is evolving proves Russell’s point.

Thanks for the comment. JGM

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Jamelle Bouie

What are the stakes of ‘civil war,’ really.

By Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

Ahead of the release of “Civil War,” the new alt-history action-drama from the director Alex Garland, A24, the studio that produced the film, released a map of the United States showing the lines of the conflict. There was the “New People’s Army” of the Pacific Northwest, the Mountain West and some of the Great Plains. There were the “Western Forces” of Texas and California. And there was the “Florida Alliance,” encompassing most of the Southeast. What remained was labeled “the Loyalist States.”

This little bit of information spurred a torrent of speculation on social media about the political contours of the film. What, exactly, were the stakes of the conflict? How, precisely, did the country come to war in the world of the movie? In what universe do the people of California find common cause with the people of Texas? The scenario wasn’t just far-fetched; it seemed nonsensical. And it did not help that in interviews , Garland took a “pox on both their houses” approach when asked about the relationship between his film and contemporary political life. “It’s polarization,” he said. “You could see that everywhere. And you could see it getting magnified.”

I saw “Civil War” a few weeks ago at a screening in Charlottesville. I had no particular expectations, but I was interested to see if the film would try to flesh out its world. It is not a spoiler to say that, well, it didn’t.

Garland and his collaborators make no attempt to explain the war. They make no attempt to explain the politics of the war. They make no attempt to explain anything about the world of the film. There are hints — allusions to the precipitating crisis and the contours of the conflict. In one scene, a television broadcast refers to the president’s third term. In another, a soldier or paramilitary whose allegiances are unclear, executes a hostage who isn’t the right “kind of American.” In another sequence, we see a male soldier — an insurgent fighting the government — sporting colored hair and painted fingernails.

Overall, however, the movie isn’t about the war itself. It is about war itself. It is not an idle choice that the protagonists of the film — and the people we spend the most time with overall — are journalists. They are on a road trip to see the front lines of the war in Charlottesville (I will say that it was a very strange experience watching the movie in a movie theater roughly 30 minutes from where the scene is supposed to be set), and we experience the conflict from their perspective as men and women who cover violent conflict. Their job is to view things as objectively as possible. This carries over to the way the story is filmed and edited. We see what they see, shorn of any glamour or excitement. The war is bloody, frightening and extremely loud.

Nothing depicted in the film — torture, summary executions and mass murder — is novel. It is part of our actual past. It has happened in many places around the world. It is happening right now in many places around the world. What makes the film striking, and I think effective, is that it shows us a vision of this violence in something like the contemporary United States.

The point, however, is not to bemoan division in the usual facile way that marks a good deal of modern political commentary. The point is to remind Americans of the reality of armed conflict of the sort that our government has precipitated in other countries. The point, as well, is to shake Americans of the delusion that we could go to war with each other in a way that would not end in catastrophic disaster.

There is a palpable thirst for conflict and political violence among some Americans right now. There was the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, of course. There are also open calls on the extreme right for civil war. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican representative from Georgia, wants a “ national divorce .” A writer for the influential Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, once mused that “most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” Disturbingly large numbers of Americans believe that violence might be necessary to achieve their political goals.

More than anything else, “Civil War” is plugged into this almost libidinal desire. It shows people, on both sides of the conflict, relishing the opportunity to kill — taking pleasure in the chance to wipe their enemies from the earth. In depicting this, “Civil War” is asking its American viewers to take a long, hard look at what it means to want to bring harm to their fellow citizens.

By setting the details of the conflict aside to focus on the experience of violence, “Civil War” is a film that asks a single, simple question of its audience: Is this what you really want?

What I Wrote

My Tuesday column was about Donald Trump’s attempt to distance himself from his anti-abortion base:

The truth of the matter is that given a second term in office, Trump and his allies will do everything in their power to ban abortion nationwide, with or without a Republican majority in Congress.

My Friday column was narrowly about the Electoral College and broadly about the use of the past to guide the present:

But whether as men or myths, the framers cannot do this. They cannot justify the choices we make while we navigate our world. The beauty and, perhaps, the curse of self-government is that it is, in fact, self-government. Our choices are our own, and we must defend them on their own terms. And while it is often good and useful to look to the past for guidance, the past cannot answer our questions or tackle our problems.

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Maggie Doherty on state-enforced sexual morality for The Atlantic.

Photo of the Week

I drove down to Petersburg, Va., a few weeks ago to walk around and take a few photos. This is one of my favorites.

Now Eating: Blistered Broccoli Pasta With Walnuts, Pecorino and Mint

A very simple pasta that comes together in no time at all. Be sure to use some of the pasta cooking liquid to make the dish less dry. If you’re feeling fancy, you could add a nice tin of fish to the mix — sardines or mackerel would work well. Recipe comes from the Cooking Section of The New York Times .

Ingredients

Kosher salt and black pepper

12 ounces fusilli or other short pasta

½ cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling

½ cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes

1 bunch broccoli or cauliflower florets roughly chopped and stalks peeled and sliced ¼-inch thick

1 lemon, zested then quartered

½ cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, plus more for serving

1 cup packed fresh mint leaves or parsley leaves

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions until al dente.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the walnuts and red-pepper flakes, if using, and cook, stirring, until golden and fragrant, about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer walnuts and red-pepper flakes to a small bowl. Season walnuts with a little salt and pepper.

Add the broccoli to the skillet and toss to coat in the oil. Shake the skillet so broccoli settles in an even layer. Cook, undisturbed, 2 minutes. Toss and shake to arrange in an even layer again and cook, undisturbed, another 2 to 3 minutes; season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

Drain pasta and add to the skillet along with the lemon zest, cheese, toasted walnuts and half the mint; toss to combine. Divide among plates or bowls and top with remaining mint, more cheese and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve with lemon wedges, squeezing juice on top, if desired.

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @ jbouie